Caritas Christi Urget Nos

Category: The Church Year

  • The Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time [Cycle B]

    The Twenty-fifth Sunday of Ordinary Time [Cycle B]

    Today’s Readings

    So the problem is, nobody ever becomes rich and famous by being righteous.  How many people even care about the idea of being righteous?  The world is so often full of jealousy and selfish ambition.  Indeed, we commend people who make amazing business deals (for themselves, anyway), who get ahead (regardless of the cost), who get rich quick (even if it means stepping on people all along the way).  These people are strong, self-assured, ambitious, and clever.  Sometimes they are even entertaining.  But would we ever call them righteous?  Maybe sometimes, but not very often, I think.

    So our idea of who is a person worthy of our admiration needs to change a bit, I think.  Jesus puts it very plainly in today’s Gospel: “If anyone wishes to be first,
he shall be the last of all and the servant of all.”  That, after all, was the way that he lived his life, and the way that he expected his disciples to live as well.  This is the Jesus who said goodbye to his disciples by feeding them with his own body and blood and washing their feet.  He is the one who cured the sick and preached the word no matter what day it was, Sabbath or not.

    Saint James in the second reading urges us all to be truly wise, not covetous and envious and full of hate.  He urges us toward the wisdom of the righteous one, the one who has the wisdom from above, who is “first of all pure, then peaceable, gentle, compliant, full of mercy and good fruits, without inconstancy or insincerity.”

    The problem is, though, that the righteous one doesn’t always live a stress-free life.  Nice guys, as the proverb goes, tend to finish last.  And so, as our first reading tells us, the just one is often seen as an obnoxious irritant to those who do not see with wisdom from above.  And so they set out to knock the just one down a peg or two: “With revilement and torture let us put the just one to the test,” they say, “that we may have proof of his gentleness and try his patience.”

    Jesus knows that just this kind of treatment is in store for him, and he discusses it with the Twelve as they walk along, out of the way of the crowds, so that he might better teach them what is to come. “The Son of Man is to be handed over to men and they will kill him, and three days after his death the Son of Man will rise.”  But the Twelve, as usual, miss the point.  And rather than ask the Teacher what he means, instead they engage in a frivolous argument about who among them is the greatest.

    Jesus corrects them, and says that the way a person becomes first among us is that he or she gives everything, empties himself, becomes the last of all and the servant of all.  This is a spiritual principle called kenosis or “self-emptying” that calls the Christian disciple to go deep into himself or herself and to give up all of the back-biting, ambitious attitudes that come so naturally to us fallen people, and instead give everything they have and are for others.  This is righteousness, and it comes at a great cost.  This is our calling as followers of the Lord.

    We have to realize that our salvation will only come about by pouring out our lives for our brothers and sisters.  We may think we can become number one by looking out for number one only.  We may think we can get ahead by tending to our own interests first and foremost.  But Jesus tells us today that quite the opposite is true.  To become number one, to really get ahead, we must serve all of our brothers and sisters.  We must lay down our lives in every way possible and raise up others whenever we see them down.  Getting this right, becoming truly righteous, will involve us tending to the needs of others first and foremost, knowing that God will take care of the just one.

  • Monday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Twenty-fourth Week in Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    This whole Gospel story can be a little bit jarring, I think.  I was particularly struck by what the messenger said to Jesus when he asked him to come to the centurion’s house: “He deserves to have you do this for him.”  Yeah, right, as if any of us is ever worthy of God’s mercy!  To his credit, the centurion must have heard of this, because he hurries to Jesus to set things right: “Lord, do not trouble yourself, for I am not worthy to have you enter under my roof.  Therefore, I did not consider myself worthy to come to you; but say the word and let my servant be healed.”  And what he says also explains why he sent a messenger to come to Jesus instead of coming himself.  For his part, Jesus is impressed with the man’s faith: “I tell you, not even in Israel have I found such faith,” he says.  And so the healing of the man’s slave takes place at once.  It’s an interesting exchange, to be sure.

    We have the privilege, every time we gather for the Eucharist, to echo the centurion’s faith.  The new revision of the Mass has us say, just before we come to the Altar for Holy Communion: “Lord, I am not worthy that you should enter under my roof.  But only say the word and my soul shall be healed.”  And saying those words out loud is so important at that moment in the Mass.  Unless we truly believe that Christ’s Body and Blood are sufficient for the healing of our souls, unless we truly know that we are completely unworthy of God’s mercy, then we don’t have the faith necessary to receive the Body and Blood of our Lord.

    But when we do enter into that moment of Communion with hearts open in faith, everything changes for us.  True healing can come about, and we can return to our daily lives and find our souls healed with the grace that prepares them for whatever this world brings them.

  • The Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time [Cycle B]

    The Twenty-fourth Sunday of Ordinary Time [Cycle B]

    Today’s readings

    One of my favorite things to do when I have spare time is to read a good mystery novel.  My mother passed her love for that genre on to me, and to my sisters.  I always used to love Agatha Christie and Arthur Conan Doyle, and I’ve read and re-read my favorites from them many times.  I also love to see mysteries played out in movies and on television, and some of my favorite shows are dramas along those lines.  The thing that I’ve learned about mysteries as a genre is that the best of them are the stories that keep you guessing; they aren’t solved all in the first six pages.

    During these Ordinary Time Sundays of the year, the Church presents two main topics for our edification and our growth in faith.  One of those topics is instruction in discipleship; how do we live as disciples and what does it look like?  We’ve been hearing that throughout the summer.  The other topic is what we are seeing today: and that is instruction in who Jesus is.  And this is where the mystery begins to play out.  Just when the disciples (and, truthfully, we ourselves) think they have Jesus all figured out, it turns out they don’t really get it at all.  Jesus is like an onion in some ways, every new clue just peels away one layer, and there is always more there to be discovered.

    In the first reading, the figure speaking is commonly referred to as “the Suffering Servant,” a figure that is later identified with Jesus.  Whoever the figure is, he or she has incredible faith.  One might expect that faith to be rewarded, but it’s not.  Instead, his back is beaten, his beard is plucked, and his face is buffeted and spat upon.  Yet, he continues to have faith, setting his face, knowing that he will not be put to shame.  Maybe you have met a person who has gone through incredible trials like unemployment, family strife, or serious illness, and has remained faithful.  If you know a person like that, perhaps you have sensed a bit of Jesus working in that person.

    In the second reading, St. James tells us that our faith must be living, or it is not faith at all.  He has seen far too many people who will say nice things to people and claim to have faith, but refuse to help alleviate anyone’s real needs.  “Go in peace, keep warm, and eat well” are nice-sounding words, but are, of course, meaningless when spoken to people who have serious problems: no place to live and keep warm, and little if anything to eat.  James’s faith is one that sees the great mystery of Christ’s presence in those who are in need.  We have the same challenges today, of course.  There are many who are needy among us, and we disciples are called to a living faith that reaches out to those in need.  Perhaps you’ve had the opportunity to work at a soup kitchen or a shelter, or go on a mission trip.  If you’ve done that, maybe you have seen the face of Christ in those you’ve served.

    The Gospel continues the theme of mystery by asking the question point-blank: “who do you say that I am?”  The people of Jesus’ time, the disciples included, were constantly trying to figure him out.  Peter seems to have figured out one of the clues: Jesus is the Messiah.  But he totally misses the boat on just what kind of Messiah Jesus is to be.  When Jesus talks about the necessity of his suffering and death, Peter just can’t wrap his mind around it.  Jesus’ response to Peter is that to really know who Jesus is, Peter needs to think like God, not like a human being.  The strangeness of this mystery is so great that it applies not just to Jesus, but also to anyone who would want to follow him.  Disciples like us must take up our cross: if we wish to save our lives, we must give them away.  This is a very great mystery indeed.

    The real mystery to this mystery of who Jesus is, is that the more we find out about him, the more we find out about ourselves.  Because we too are called to be suffering servants: all of our good efforts won’t always be rewarded in this life.  Sometimes standing up for what is right will lead to scorn and abuse.  But we do it nonetheless, knowing that ultimately, we will never be put to shame.  And we too are called to have faith that is living, faith that reveals itself in the works we do.  We can’t claim to be people of faith if we don’t give of ourselves and extend ourselves in service.  Faith that never says yes to the call of Jesus is not faith at all.  Faith that is only evident one hour a week is not faith at all.  And finally, we are called, by the very words of our Savior, to take up our cross and follow him.  Following him will ultimately lead us to glory if we do it faithfully.  But following him will also lead us to the Cross.  Yesterday we celebrated that mystery in the feast of the Triumph of the Cross.  Yes, we will suffer in this life, yes we will die, but that death will release us to the glory of the resurrection, if we embrace it in faith.

    The psalmist sums it all up for us today.  Yes, the suffering in our lives leads us to experience the cords of death that encompass us.  We often fall into distress and sorrow.  But when we embrace that suffering and call on the Lord, we will find ourselves freed of death and able to walk before the Lord in the land of the living.  We who have embraced and remembered and celebrated the mystery of Christ’s presence in our lives, in our Church and in our world, can approach suffering with great faith.  There’s a contemporary Christian song that says “sometimes he calms the storm, and other times he calms his child.”  God won’t always make our tears and pain go away.  But he does promise that we will never go through them alone.  We will probably never completely figure Christ out this side of the Kingdom.  The disciples didn’t and we won’t either.  But when we enter into the mystery, we can keep turning the pages and finding more and more clues.  When we enter the mystery, we can look forward to the great unveiling of the solution when we enter our heavenly reward.

  • Monday of the Twenty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Twenty-third Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    So the readings that we have today are not meant to be of comfort to the afflicted; rather their intent is to afflict us who have been just a little to comfortable.  It seems that the Church at Corinth had enthusiastically accepted Paul’s preaching of the Gospel, but while the cat was away, well, you know the rest.  It seems they had become known not so much for their integrity and faithful living of the Gospel, so much as for their degenerate actions, actions that apparently would have made the pagans blush.  Paul, as the father of their community, comes down on them pretty harshly, and well does he do so, so as to save them from the fires of hell.

    In the Gospel reading, we see those scribes and Pharisees once again on the lookout for anything they can use to discredit and condemn Jesus.  They know that the man’s withered hand would not be something Jesus the healer could overlook.  So Jesus asks them if it is okay to do nothing on the Sabbath and so let evil continue to reign, or would it be better to actually do some good, to actually reach out in compassion to bind up the broken and heal the sick?  One would think the call for true justice would stir somewhere in their hardened hearts, but obviously their penchant for legalism allows them to use the letter of the law to condemn the One who came to manifest the spirit of the law.

    So if we feel a little uncomfortable having heard the proclamation of these readings, they we certainly have experienced them in the spirit they were offered.  The Liturgy of the Word today calls us to look at our own lives and root out everything that is contrary to the Gospel.  In the quiet places of our day today, a rather honest examination of conscience would do wonders for our lives of faith.

    It is the Psalmist today who allows us to pray that we might not fall into the traps of degeneration, apathy and self-righteousness:  “Lead me to your justice, Lord.”  Lead us to your justice, indeed.  Help us to live lives of integrity that proclaim the Kingdom of God with its call to repentance.  Help us to remember that Sabbath rest is supposed to strengthen us for Gospel service.  Help us to embrace the spirit of the law by loving others as you love us.  Lead us to your justice, Lord.

  • The Twenty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    The Twenty-second Sunday of Ordinary Time [B]

    Today’s readings

    Many of you know that recently I have been working on losing weight and getting healthy.  That’s been going on since January, and it’s starting to see some good results.  And the recipe, as any doctor or nutritionist will tell you, is easy: eat less and be more active.  Easier said than done, of course.  But I’ve been following the doctrines and precepts of my diet for the better part of this year.  Just recently, I knew that it was having an effect on me.  One day, I had some free time and I thought about how nice it would be to have a nap.  My very next thought was, “Oh, but I should go out and have a good long walk first!”  I also have started to think about food differently: some things while momentarily yummy aren’t all that satisfying, and they’re just going to cost me more time in the gym.  As I’ve noticed myself beginning to think that way, I realized that lifestyle changes had happened in me, and that was good.

    I say all that not to pat myself on the back, but because I think it is a parallel to what the Church is teaching us in today’s Liturgy of the Word.  This year I’ve learned that following the rules of the diet was nice, but making lifestyle changes is going to give me real results.  Similarly, the readings today teach us that following the rules of our religion is nice, but it’s not until we let our faith take hold of our lives that we are going to see real results in our walk with the Lord.

    In our first reading today, Moses is exhorting the people to carefully observe the laws that God has set before them.  This wasn’t supposed to be some kind of scrupulous, daunting observance, but rather a response to God’s love and care for them.  They had been led lovingly through the desert and were about to take possession of the Promised Land, the land promised by God to their ancestors.  And so as they obey the law and take possession of the promise, they give witness to the nations to the greatness of their God and the wisdom of the people.

    But as time went on, the observance of these laws got a bit messed up.  People had given up true observance of the law and the love of God, and got caught up in the appearances that came from rigid observance of the rules of the law.  They missed the spirit of the law, and even used the law as justification to do whatever it was they wanted to do.  Our readings give us two responses to that issue today.

    The first response is the response Jesus gives to it in today’s Gospel.  Here he has yet another altercation with the scribes and Pharisees.  They begin to quiz him about his disciples’ habit of not washing their hands before they eat.  Now before all you parents start siding with the Pharisees, they weren’t talking about cleaning dirt off their hands before a meal.  They were talking about a ritual custom of washing, not only hands, but also jugs and other things.  These rituals probably began as something the priests did before offering sacrifice, much like the hand washing that is done in the Eucharistic Liturgy before the Eucharistic Prayer.  But in the case of the Jews, this practice seems to have become something that ended up obliging everyone, and the Pharisees were keen to see that it was done faithfully by everyone, along with the other 612 laws they were required to practice!

    So what Jesus was criticizing here was empty, meaningless ritual.  Non-observance of these meaningless things, he says, do not make a person impure.  Those demanding that people obey these human laws are themselves disobeying the law of God, Jesus says.  So he illustrates the problem by making the point that real impurity comes from a much more fickle source: the human heart.  The real problem is that people don’t purify their hearts.  Because from an impure heart comes all sorts of foul things: “evil thoughts, unchastity, theft, murder, adultery, greed, malice, deceit, licentiousness, envy, blasphemy, arrogance, folly.  All these evils,” Jesus says, “come from within and they defile.”

    The second response comes in our second reading from the letter of Saint James.  Saint James attacks people’s rigid observance of the law at the expense of the poor.  Those who dwell on the mere observance of the law are missing its point: and that is that we are to love as God loves.  So if one wishes to be pure in one’s observance of religion, one should be a doer of the world and not just a hearer.  Pure religion involves caring for widows and orphans and all those who have been marginalized, and to keep from being corrupted by the world and its influences.

    I think James underscores Jesus’ point that missing a miniscule point of the law does not make a person unclean or irreligious.  Instead, missing the whole spirit of the law and becoming corrupted by the world is what does that to a person.  We have to be honest, I think, and acknowledge that this kind of issue was not limited just to the people of Israel: it can be our issue too.  We too have to admit that we are guilty of that horrifying list of sins that Jesus spells out for us today.  And the way we’ve gotten there is by not giving our faith a chance to really sink in, to become a lifestyle change like in my diet, to take hold of our hearts.

    There’s a positive and negative way of getting at that, and it’s the simple formula of the spiritual life: do good and avoid evil.  Avoiding evil can be tough, because there are so many traps out there, so many obstacles to the spiritual life, so many occasions for sin.  Maybe it means we need to stop watching so much television.  Or spending too much time on the internet.  Perhaps some relationships we have are not healthy and need to be ended.  Maybe we’ve been paying attention to the wrong advice.  We generally have to be on guard as to what goes into us, knowing that, as the Act of Contrition says, we need to avoid whatever leads us to sin.  So, whatever it is that needs to be rooted out, it needs to go.

    The opportunities to do good are just as numerous as those to do evil.  We just have to perhaps respond to more of these opportunities.  Perhaps we need to pray more.  Or to read the Scriptures or other spiritual books more.  Maybe it would be good to spend more time with our families, to pray together, or watch a good movie together, even to have more meals together.  Or maybe it wouldn’t hurt to do a bit more apostolic service: shopping for the food pantry, teaching a religious education class, helping with a parish event, looking in on a sick neighbor.  I know those things can be hard to do in our busy lives, but they’re never going to be a waste of time or effort.

    As we continue our prayer this morning, maybe we can all reflect on our response to the life of faith.  If we can make a resolution to change one small thing and bring that as part of our offering of gifts this morning, who knows if our whole life of faith won’t change in a positive way!  Today the Psalmist is very clear about the fact that working on interiorizing our faith every day comes with a reward: The one who does justice will live in the presence of the Lord.

  • The Twenty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time (Bread of Life Discourse V)

    The Twenty-first Sunday of Ordinary Time (Bread of Life Discourse V)

    Today’s readings

    Life calls us to make some very difficult decisions sometimes.  Who will we vote for?  What school will we choose for our children?  Is this the person I should marry?  Is this job the right one for me right now?  In today’s readings, though, the players are making a very basic choice: whom will they serve?  It seems like the answer should be easy – God, of course – but for the people of that time, and if we’re honest, for all of us, there are certainly distractions to true worship.

    The Israelites were certainly tempted to worship the so-called gods of the lands they moved into.  That would have made it easier for them to get along, but more importantly, would have provided economic benefits as they allied themselves with the native peoples.  For those who had been following Jesus, they couldn’t get past the hard teaching that he was the Bread of Life, come down from heaven, so many of them turned away.  And for people in our own time, don’t we all find excuses to turn away?  Living our faith is sometimes inconvenient because we can’t get the kids to their sports and still come to Mass, or it’s uncomfortable because we are embarrassed to live our faith and stand up for truth when business or social relationships call us to do what we know we should not.

    Everyone at some point has to answer the questions we hear in our first reading and our Gospel today:  Decide today whom you will serve.  Do you also want to leave?

    Today’s Gospel reading is the conclusion to the five-week study the Church has given us of the sixth chapter of Saint John’s Gospel, which we commonly call the Bread of Life Discourse.  We began back at the end of July, when Jesus fed the multitudes with five loaves and two fish.  The crowds pursued him because they wanted more, and Jesus gave them food of another kind: spiritual teaching about what really feeds us.  In these last couple of weeks he has told them that he himself is the Bread of Life, that if one desires to avoid hunger in eternity, they need to partake of his own Body and Blood, because he is the true bread that came down from heaven.

    The people have had two problems with this: first, they objected to him saying he had come down from heaven.  Many of them knew his family, and some probably knew him since childhood.  How then could he claim to have come from heaven?  Secondly, the prospect of eating his Body and Blood was repulsive to them.  They were so scandalized that, of the thousands he had fed, most of them returned home now, and even many of his disciples said goodbye.  So he poses the question to his Apostles – the chosen Twelve: – Do you also want to leave?  Speaking for the rest, Peter professes faith that Jesus is the only One to whom they can turn, that he is in fact the Holy One of God.

    The situation is not that different from the one Joshua addresses in our first reading today.  Joshua took over leadership of the people after Moses died, and he is now showing his leadership style.  He will not be a leader that forces the people to do one thing or another.  Instead, he points out the many wonderful things God has done for the people.  This is the God who led them out of Egypt and sustained them through the desert journey.  This is the God who led them into the Promised Land, the land he promised their ancestors he would give them.  And now that they have received the many benefits of God’s mighty promises, it’s time for them to make a choice.  Will they serve the so-called gods of the pagan inhabitants of the land, or will they serve the Lord their God, who gave them so much.  For Joshua, the choice is easy: “as for me and my house, we will serve the Lord.”

    Peter and Joshua have it right.  They know the real source of grace, they know the One true God, they know the source of everlasting food and drink, and they choose accordingly.  And now the question is ours.  We have all of us been on a five-week-long Eucharistic retreat.  If you’ve missed any part of it, I encourage you to go back and read all of the sixth chapter of John.  It will take you ten or fifteen minutes if you read it nice and slow.  And as we stand here at the end of it all, we too have to make the decisions we hear in today’s Liturgy of the Word: decide today whom you will serve; what about you, will you also leave?

    It’s a critical question for us.  Because there are lots of entities in our world that are vying for our servitude.  Will we serve the so-called gods of the people in whose country we live?  We who are disciples are aliens here; this is not our true home.  So what’s it going to be?  Are we going to serve the gods of relativism, of greed, and the culture of death?  Will we turn away and no longer follow our Lord?  Or will we recognize with the disciples that there is no one else to whom we can turn and say with Joshua, “we will serve the Lord?”

    At one point or another in every disciple’s life, he or she has to answer this question.  For me, it came in my early thirties, when I had been going to Willow Creek Church with some friends.  I was attracted, as many are, to the music and the preaching and I had many good experiences there.  There came a point in which I felt like I had to make a decision between the Catholic Church and Willow Creek, and I spoke to my pastor about it.  We went back and forth for a while and finally Father Mike put it very bluntly: “I don’t think you would ever stand in that chapel and say Jesus wasn’t present there.”

    Shortly after that, I went to Willow Creek while they had their monthly “Lord’s Supper” service.  And that was part of the problem: it was monthly, not every week, certainly not every day.  And it wasn’t Jesus: it was just bread and wine that was a mere symbol of the Lord’s Body and Blood.  They had to project the Lord’s Prayer on the screen, because people didn’t just know it.  And the speaker in his sermon, apparently an ex-Catholic, made light of the Sacrament of Penance.  And in that moment, I knew Father Mike was right.  Christ is present in the Tabernacle, he is present on the altar, present in the sacraments, and there is no way in the world I could ever live without that.  I couldn’t turn away, and I would serve the Lord in the Catholic Church.  Who would ever guessed it would have led me here today!

    And so I leave you with the same question Joshua posed to the Israelites and Jesus posed to his Twelve.  You have been fed at this table on the Bread that came down from heaven; the holy Bread of eternal life, the Body and Blood of our Savior God.  Yes, there are distractions out there, but we all know deep in our hearts where the true food is.  So will you also leave?  Decide today whom you will serve.  As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord!

  • Monday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Monday of the Nineteenth Week of Ordinary Time

    Today’s readings

    Things are starting to get real for those first followers of Jesus.  Jesus speaks to his disciples at the beginning of today’s Gospel reading about his impending demise.  He foretells that he will be handed over and killed.  And the disciples are overwhelmed with grief.  Certainly we can resonate with their grief.  They’ve been following him and living day-in and day-out with him for quite some time now, and just when they are really starting to appreciate his message and mission, he’s talking about the end of it all.

    We don’t have to spiritualize things too much to grieve ourselves over Jesus’ death.  Because we know what brought about that painful, humiliating death: our many sins.  Both our personal sins and the sins of our society have caused the evil which made his death the necessary means of salvation.  And so, as we look up there on that cross, well, we might feel a bit of grief ourselves over such great suffering for so much evil.

    But we can’t miss what the disciples seem to have missed.  Right after the foretells his handing over and death, and before Matthew comments on their overwhelming grief, Jesus says this: “and he will be raised on the third day.”  Now, granted, they had no idea what that meant, so probably it couldn’t have been much comfort for them.  But we do know what it means – it means everything!  Yes, the weight of our sins is ponderous, but they don’t define us.  Yes, the evil in our world is overwhelming, but it is not triumphant.  Yes, death is sorrowful, but it is not the end.  It wasn’t for Jesus, and it doesn’t have to be the end for us either, if we believe in him and follow him and live the Gospel.

  • The Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [B] – Bread of Life Discourse III

    The Nineteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [B] – Bread of Life Discourse III

    Today’s readings

    There’s an awful lot of murmuring going on in today’s readings.  First, the prophet Elijah, fleeing for his life, takes refuge under a broom tree in the desert, pleading that God would take his life rather than let his enemies catch up with him.  Then the Ephesians have apparently been displaying enough bitterness, anger, shouting, reviling, anger and malice that Saint Paul has to tell them to cut it out.  Finally the Galileans, having enjoyed the feeding of the multitudes and then asking Jesus for more, become indignant when he tells them he is the bread come down from heaven.  Murmur, murmur, murmur.

    The word, “murmur” and the Greek word that is translated as such – “gogguzo” – are examples of onomatopoeia, that is, the words sound like what they are.  Gogguzo means to murmur or complain or grumble.  It’s a kind of discontent that comes from a lack of something deep down inside; as we see it used here, it comes from a spiritual hunger.  We see it in all three of our readings today.

    In the first reading, the prophet Elijah has had just about enough, thank you very much.  Despite some successes in preaching the word of the Lord, he has felt that he is a failure.  Today’s reading comes after Elijah, with God’s help, just defeated all the prophets of the false god Baal in a splendid display of pyrotechnics on Mount Carmel.  It’s a wonderful story that you can find in chapter 18 of the first book of Kings, and your homework today is to go home and look it up!  I promise, you’ll enjoy the story.  Well after that outstanding success, one would expect Elijah to go about boasting of his victory.  Instead, Jezebel, the king’s wife and the one who brought the prophets of Baal to Israel in the first place, pledges to take Elijah’s life.  Today’s story, then, finds him sitting under a scraggly broom tree, which offered little if any shade, and praying for death.  For him it would be better for the Lord to take his life than to die by Jezebel’s henchmen.  The Lord ignores his prayer and instead twice makes him get up and eat bread that God himself provides, so that he would be strengthened for the journey.  In the story that follows, Elijah will come quite face-to-face with God, and be refreshed to go on.  But he can’t do that if he starves to death under the broom tree.  Sometimes God does not give us what we ask for, but exactly what we need.

    In the second reading, it seems like the Ephesians, far from being a close-knit spiritual community as one would expect, were more like a bunch of grade school children at recess, or the British House of Commons during a debate.   Saint Paul calls them to remember that they had been fed and strengthened by God’s forgiveness that was lavishly poured out on them through the suffering and death of Christ.  And he tells them they should be strengthened by that glorious grace to imitate God and live in love.

    So Elijah needed strength for the journey, and the Ephesians needed strength for love and compassion.  But maybe the greatest spiritual hunger that we see in today’s readings is the hunger of those Galileans that were murmuring against Jesus.  Our Gospel reading takes us back to Saint John’s “Bread of Life Discourse.”  We usually read from the Gospel of Mark during this liturgical year, but since Mark is shorter than Matthew and Luke, we have a five-week opportunity during the summer to hear John’s Eucharistic Theology beautifully told in the sixth chapter of his Gospel.  We began two weeks ago with the feeding of the multitudes; then last week the multitudes sought Jesus out so they could get more of the same and Jesus sets out to feed their spirits.  At the end of last week’s Gospel, Jesus told them that Moses didn’t give them bread from heaven, but rather God did; and then he made a very bold claim: “I am the bread of life.”  So this week, the people are angry with Jesus for that claim, for saying that he came down from heaven.  They murmured because they knew his family, and surmised that he couldn’t have descended from heaven.  They didn’t yet understand the depth of who Jesus was.  They were so hungry that they didn’t realize that the finest spiritual banquet stood right before them.

     

    The thing is, spiritual hunger is something we all face in one way or another.  Whether we’re feeling dejected and defeated like Elijah, or feeling cranky and irritable like the Ephesians, or whether we’re just feeling superior and murmuring like the Jews in today’s Gospel, spiritual hunger is something we all must face sometime in our lives.  From time to time, we all discover in ourselves a hole that we try to fill with something.  Maybe we try to fill that up with alcohol, or too much work, or too much ice cream, or the wrong kind of relationships, or whatever; and eventually we find that none of that fills up the hole in our lives.  Soon we end up sitting under a straggly old broom tree, wishing that God would take us now.  If we’re honest, we’ve all been at that place at one time or another in our lives.

    We disciples know that there is only one thing – or rather one person – that can fill up that emptiness.  And that person is Jesus Christ.  This Jesus knows our pains and sorrows and longs to be our Bread of Life, the only bread that can fill up that God-sized hole in our lives.  We have to let him do that.  But it’s not so easy for us to let God take over and do what he needs to do in us.  We have to turn off the distractions around us, we have to stop trying to fill the hole with other things that never have any hope of satisfying us, and we have to turn to our Lord in trust that only he can give us strength for the journey.  Jesus alone is the bread that came down from heaven, and only those who eat this bread will live forever, forever satisfied, forever strengthened.

    Because this bread is so important to us, because it is such a great sign of God’s presence in our lives, we should be all the more encouraged to receive the Eucharist frequently and faithfully.  Certainly nothing other than sickness or death should deter us from gathering on Sunday to celebrate with the community and receive our Lord in Holy Communion.  We should all think long and hard before we decide not to bring our families to Sunday Mass.  Sometimes soccer, football, softball and other sports or activities become more important than weekly worship, as if Mass were just one option among many activities from which we may choose.  Or maybe we decide to work at the office or around the house instead of coming to Church on Sunday, a clear violation of the third commandment.  I realize that I may well be preaching to those who already know this, and I realize that it’s hard, especially for families, to get to Church at times, but this is way too important for any of us to miss.  It is Jesus, the Bread of Life, who will lead us to heaven – the goal of all our lives, – and absolutely nothing and no one else will do that.

    It all comes down to what we believe.  If we believe that Jesus is the Bread of Life, then why on earth would we ever want to miss worship?  If he is the only way to heaven, why would we think to separate ourselves from him?  Our Church teaches us that this is not just a wafer of bread and a sip of wine that we are receiving; we believe that it is the very real presence of our Lord, his body and blood, soul and divinity, under the mere appearance of bread and wine.  Because this is our Lord we are receiving, we should never allow anything to take its place.  Because this is our Lord we are receiving, we must return to this Eucharist every week, every day if we are able, acknowledging the great and holy gift that He is to us.

    We will come forward in a few minutes to receive this great gift around the Table of the Lord.  As we continue our prayer today, let us remember to always do what the Psalmist tells us: “taste and see how good the Lord is!”

  • The Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

    The Feast of the Transfiguration of the Lord

    Today’s readings

    How do you picture Jesus? We’ve never seen him face to face, but we have seen artwork depicting him. That artwork can be very inspiring. But that artwork can also give us a false, overly-familiar look at Jesus our God. I tend to think Peter, James and John also had a kind of familiar picture of their Jesus. Over the time they had spent with him thus far, they had become close to him and saw him as a friend, a companion on the journey, and a great teacher. But they were always having trouble with his divinity.

    Today’s feast changes all of that for them, and for us as well. If there was any doubt about who Jesus was, it’s gone now. That voice from the cloud is absolutely specific: “This is my chosen Son; listen to him.” Jesus is the Son of God and his divinity must be embraced and proclaimed. While it can be comfortable for us to have a picture of Jesus that is absolutely human, we must always keep in mind the Transfigured Christ, dazzling white, radiating glory, the lamp shining in a dark place. He is the Son of Man of whom Daniel speaks, and to him belongs dominion, glory, and kingship. If Jesus were only human, we would have no Savior, we would have no chance of touching divinity ourselves, that divinity for which we were created.

    On the way to the mountain, the disciples came to know Jesus in his humanity, and on the way down, they came to know Jesus in his divinity. That trip down from the mountain took him to Calvary, and ultimately to the Resurrection, the glory of all glories. Christ is both human and divine, without any kind of division or separation. We must be ready to see both natures of our Jesus, so that we ourselves can transfigure our world with justice, compassion and mercy, in the divine image of our beautiful Savior. No matter what challenges may confront us or what obstacles may appear along the way, we must be encouraged to press on with the words of the Psalmist: “The Lord is king, the Most High over all the earth.”

  • The Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [Cycle B]: Bread of Life Discourse II

    The Eighteenth Sunday of Ordinary Time [Cycle B]: Bread of Life Discourse II

    Today’s readings

    My niece, Molly, wants to open a restaurant when she grows up.  She said that she is going to call it, simply, “Hungry.”  Seems like a good enough name for a restaurant to me.  Where are you going to go when you’re hungry?  Well, to “Hungry,” of course!  Based on what Molly likes to eat, I think “Hungry’s” menu will feature relatively simple fare: macaroni and cheese, and cake for dessert.  What more do you need?

    But Molly may be on to something even deeper here, I think.  “Hungry” is a great name for her restaurant, because we humans are always hungry for something.  We certainly can see that clearly in today’s Liturgy of the Word.  First we have the Israelites, fresh from their escape from slavery in Egypt, finding that they are hungry as they wander through the desert.

    I think we can understand their hunger.  But what is hard to understand is the content of their grumbling about it.  They say that they would rather be back in Egypt, eating bread and the meat of the “fleshpots.”  Why on earth did God have to drag them out into the desert only to kill them by hunger and let them die there?  They would rather be in slavery in Egypt than be in the situation in which they find themselves.  Please understand how serious this grumbling is: it is a complete rejection of God.

    And it’s a shocking rejection, to be quite frank.  The slavery they were subject to was not some kind of minor inconvenience.  It’s not just that they were a little underpaid for their labor.  No, they were beaten if they didn’t meet outrageous quotas; any kind of discontent would have cost them their lives.  They lived in fear all the time, not knowing what new cruel joke their oppressors would subject them to.  And so they cried out to God, who heard them, and delivered them.

    And the deliverance wasn’t some tiny little act of mercy.  It’s not like God opened a tiny door and they escaped on their own.  No: God basically made a laughing stock of the pharaoh, who had made a laughing stock of the people Israel.  He gave pharaoh a dose of what he had given the people.  God made the plight of the Egyptians so bad that they were glad to be rid of the Israelites and basically helped them pack for the journey, giving them all of their gold and silver valuables to take with them.  When the Israelites could not figure out the way they should go, God provided a column of cloud by day and fire by night so that they could see the right path.  When the Egyptians pursued them and gained on them, God opened up the Red Sea for the Israelites to pass through, and then closed it back up over the Egyptians, swallowing up their armies, their horses, their chariots and their charioteers.

    But now they’re a little hungry, so they’d like to return the gift, thank you very much.  And when you think about it, this is really illogical.  Is God, who was powerful enough to overthrow the Egyptians, and to deliver his people through the Red Sea, not powerful enough to feed them besides?  Of course he is, and God will certainly feed his people when it’s time, and will not let them die of hunger and thirst in the desert.  How could they think otherwise?  But still, they were hungry.

    Not so different is the clamoring of the people in today’s Gospel reading.  Today we pick back up our reflection on the “Bread of Life Discourse,” the sixth chapter of John’s Gospel.  Because Mark’s Gospel, which we are hearing from this liturgical year, is a little shorter than the others, we get five wonderful weeks to take a little journey into John’s Eucharistic theology during these summer days.  We began last week, with the famous story of Jesus feeding the multitudes.  Today’s story picks up where last week’s left off: the people were so impressed by Jesus feeding so many with so little that they pursue him across the sea to Capernaum.

    Their motives are not shocking: they enjoyed the food that Jesus provided in last week’s Gospel, and they are looking for more of the same.  When they catch up with him, Jesus engages them in dialogue.  Jesus, of course, recognizes that they have pursued him not for any religious or spiritual reason, but because he fed them and they are looking for more of the same.  But the real feeding he intends is not just barley loaves, but instead something a little more enduring.

    They ask him how they can accomplish the works of God, which is a fair enough question.  That’s really the purpose of our lives too.  But they probably mean that they want to know how they can live the law, which is not nearly as deep as Jesus wishes to go.  He tells them that the best way they can do God’s will is to believe in him – the one God sent.  So they have the audacity to ask him what kind of sign he can do so that they can believe in him.  Can you believe that?  He just finished feeding thousands of people with five loaves and two fish, and they want to see a sign?  I don’t know about you, but I’m beginning to think they wouldn’t recognize a sign from God if it came up and bit them in the nose!

    Jesus, instead, would redefine hunger.  Like I said, he wanted to go much deeper.  Barley loaves and manna are nice, but they are nothing compared to what Jesus really longs to give them – and us, by the way.  He makes a very bold claim at the end of today’s Gospel that tells us just exactly what he has in mind: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me will never hunger, and whoever believes in me will never thirst.”  They may have to toil very hard for physical bread, bread that will perish, bread that doesn’t last more than a day or so.  But Jesus would have them work for bread that lasts for eternity, the bread of life.  And all they have to do to work for it is to believe.  The question is not whether Jesus will feed them, the question is whether they can accept it.

    With the eyes of our faith, formed by two thousand years of Church teaching, I think we can accept with our minds that Jesus wants to feed us in the deepest of ways.  But we still need to give him the opportunity to do that.  Because when the rubber meets the road, and our faith is tested, and we find ourselves hungry, we’re not so different from those Israelites who clamored for the fleshpots of Egypt or the Galileans who clamored after barley loaves and fish.  We want what we want when we want it, and that has never changed; I doubt it ever will.  But only when we give ourselves to God and trust him to feed us in the deepest of ways will we ever stop being hungry.  We need to get past macaroni and cheese, cake, barley loaves, and manna, and open ourselves to the Bread of Life.

    I think the starting point is that we have to be clear about what it is we hunger for.  And that question is very pressing on all of us today.  Every one of us comes here hungering for something.  Our hungers may be very physical: some here may be unemployed or underemployed, or perhaps our hunger is for physical healing of some kind.  But perhaps our hungers are a bit deeper too: a relationship that is going badly, or a sense that we aren’t doing what we should be or want to be doing with our lives.  Our hunger very well may be very spiritual as well: perhaps our relationship with God is not very developed or our prayer life has become stale.  Whatever the hunger is, we need to be honest and name it right now, in the stillness of our hearts.

    Naming that hunger, we then have to do what Jesus encouraged the crowds to do: believe.  That is the work of God that we are called upon to do.  Believe that God can feed our deepest hungers, heal our deepest wounds, bind up our brokenness and calm our restless hearts.  Believe that Jesus is, in fact, the Bread of Life, the bread that will never go stale or perish, the bread that will never run out, or disappear like manna in the heat of the day.  Jesus is the Bread that can feed more than our stomachs but also our hearts and souls.  The Psalmist sings, “The Lord gave them bread from heaven.”  And we know that bread is the most wonderful food of all, because it is the Body of Christ.  Amen!